Zen in the Art of Writing — Ray Bradbury

A review by Magicthreadworks

Zen in the Art of Writing — Ray Bradbury A review by Magicthreadworks

You absorb the idea of the world around you based on what people in closest proximity to you tells you. Then you expand on those ideas based on your interactions with intellectuals of the past through books. I am currently in the process of refining my idea of the world and Ray Bradbury becomes an excellent thinking board to sound my ideas with.

Here are my take aways and musings -

1. Anchor Thoughts - Every one has a few anchor thoughts ( or core memories) in their life which tells them some key learning about the world and becomes the first principles a person lives by. In the case of Ray Bradbury it is the incidence which happens to him when he is 8 years old - he finds himself collecting comic strips of a particular comic and when he shares his discovery with his friends they start making fun of him. To avoid shame he throws away his collection and lives in misery for a month, post which he decides to go back to collecting his comic book but in secrecy this time. His love for this comic not only led to him being a great writer eventually but this incident taught him something very significant that shy away from things you are destined to just because others are not able to see value in it. This is his anchor thought because he comes back to this one incident time and again in his essays. Even writes a poem on it. This essentially becomes his yard stick to check the authenticity of his actions in his life.

2. Ray Bradbury is into Zen - This is an important self note for me as more I am reading more I am finding that many of the great writers of their times were into eastern philosophy. Arthur Huxley, contemporary of Bradbury being one of them has also written extensively about his take on eastern philosophy. So does Herman Hesse. I have a certain bias about such authors and their work because I think their world is something I am able to resonate with.

3. Why does he write? — He writes to remain sane, keep the flow of thoughts in his own hands otherwise thoughts have the power to take you to a mundane depressing arena from where it becomes too difficult to come out.

He writes with zest, that’s the only way to write, not because you get something in return but because there is happiness in the pit of your stomach which spreads it’s warmth wide inside you as your thoughts manifest themselves as words on paper. To experience the sheer estacy of it he writes.He writes because there is so much we have absorbed over time with our interactions with the world, which has then reacted inside of us to build our own set of thoughts, struggling desperately to get out of our system. He writes because he will burst if he doesn’t let it all out.

Any kind of art is nothing but our self expression trying to manifest itself. It reminds me of the small segway in the movie “Ankhon Dekhi” where one day a boy goes silent because so much inside of him which he has absorbed and now is unprocessed that his system has clogged. His mother takes him to Bauji and Bauji asks him to speak and he will listen — the boy starts talking and talks non-stop. Minutes, hours and days goes by — the boy keeps talking and Bauji, as promised, listens. After three days, the boy suddenly stops and says “I think I have said all that I wanted to”. He was cured now. He and his mother thanked Bauji and left. I think this clogging of creative expression was what had happened to him.

1. Words as ruins -Ray Bradbury’s method of writing is heavily dependent on word associations. He just keeps making a list of words which triggers something in him and goes back to it whenever he has to write to see which one speaks to him in the moment. It’s like imbuning the word with magic, like ruins, which gets activated only when the time is right.

2. Everyone is a poet when it comes to relaying their most cherished memories. Because in that moment the story that you are telling is your most authentic self.

3. On Writer’s Block he writes — Ideas are like cats, when are not coming your way willingly, it’s better to leave them and turn around. The cat will say this is not how much humans behave, they would have forced to pick me up. They will come to you on their own will and ask, “what’s wrong, don’t you love me anymore”.

4. May be his most famous quote is “Don’t Think". It means just read and write every day and build your writing muscle so strong that then you don’t have to think, just write down the flow of words which automatically comes to you. Similar to what happens in most of the Zen practices and can be applied to any skill you want to learn. An ideal life is nothing but an ideal day lived with a higher intensity than last. Read more on this here https://medium.com/@tanyachadha/creating-your-ideal-reality-704df5c572e8

5. At the end most profound of all was this poem that he left as ode to another poet. This is the one for which I will come back to this book again.

WHAT I DO IS ME -- FOR THAT I CAME

for Gerard Manley Hopkins

What I do is me -- for that I came.

What I do is me!

For that I came into the world!

So said Gerard;

So said that gentle Manley Hopkins.

In his poetry and prose he saw the Fates that chose

Him in genetics, then set him free to find his way

Among the sly electric printings in his blood.

God thumbprints thee! he said.

Within your hour of birth

He touches hand to brow,

He whorls and softly stamps

The ridges and the symbols of His soul above your eyes!

But in that selfsame hour, full born and shouting

Shocked pronouncements of one's birth,

In mirrored gaze of midwife, mother, doctor

See that Thumbprint fade and fall away in flesh

So, lost, erased, you seek a lifetime's days for it

And dig deep to find the sweet instructions there

Put by when God first circuited and printed thee to life:

"Go hence! do this! do that! do yet another thing!

This self is yours! Be it!"

And what is that?!

you cry at hearthing breast,

Is there no rest? No, only journeying to be yourself.

And even as the Birthmark vanishes, in seashell ear

Now fading to a sigh, His last words send you in the world:

"Not mother, father, grandfather are you.

Be not another. Be the self I signed you in your blood.

I swarm your flesh with you. Seek that.

And, finding, be what no one else can be.

I leave you gifts of Fate most secret; find no other's Fate,

For if you do, no grave is deep enough for your despair

No country far enough to hide your loss.

I circumnavigate each cell in you

Your merest molecule is right and true.

Look there for destinies indelible and fine And rare.

Ten thousand futures share your blood each instant;

Each drop of blood a cloned electric twin of you.

In merest wound on hand read replicas of what I planned and knew

Before your birth, then hid it in your heart.

No part of you that does not snug and hold and hide

The self that you will be if faith abide.

What you do is thee. For that I gave you birth.

Be that. So be the only you that's truly you on Earth."